Fayeza Ahmed named associate director of Maine Syracuse Longitudinal Study
University of Maine assistant professor of psychology Fayeza Ahmed has been named the first associate director of the Maine Syracuse Longitudinal Study (MSLS) that focuses on hypertension, cardiovascular risk factors and aging as predictors of cognitive functioning.
Fayeza Ahmed will be the primary go-to person for UMaine students and faculty interested in examining the data, as well as reviewing project proposals from interested researchers. By virtue of her strong interest and backgrounds in aging and neuropsychology, she is well prepared to represent the study as its first associate director.
UMaine emeritus professor of psychology Merrill “Pete” Elias and research associate professor Michael Robbins serve as MSLS director and co-director, respectively.
MSLS began in 1974 in Syracuse, New York, with Elias as principal investigator. The project was supported by a research grant from the National Institute on Aging.
MSLS was moved permanently to UMaine in 1976, with Robbins joining the project in 1978. Until 2006, data collection continued in central New York state with grant support from the National Institute on Aging and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes. Overseas collaboration with the University of Oxford was supported by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1989–92).
While grant support and data collection ended in 2009, data analysis and manuscript writing have been ongoing with support by collaborators from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Luxembourg.
With 2,759 participants, the MSLS database has resulted in more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, including Hypertension, the American Journal of Hypertension, Stroke and Archives of Neurology.
The database is archived and open to researchers at UMaine and beyond, including those in the UMaine Department of Psychology, and UMaine Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering.
More information about MSLS is available online or by emailing Fayeza Ahmed, fayeza.ahmed@maine.edu.